Things you NEVER ever want to do! - Montana Owners Club

HamRad · 08-20-2004, 11:31 PM

Ok folks here's something you don't ever want to do ----- NEVER leave the water running in the bathtub to water your plants you've brought along and then go out to dinner for a couple of hours. We met some friends and Don and his wife Claudia (Searchers) at Mt. Shasta on Tuesday night. This was our second night out. We had a great time meeting our friends and making new ones of Don and Claudia.

So the guy next to us sees the water running from the basement and thankfully turns the water off. Otherwise it would have been a lot worse. We opened up the basement doors and turned on the lights and up in the bathroom we sopped as much water up as we could and left a fan running there to help dry things out and went to bed. Next morning all was dry except the lowest part of the basement. We did not open the belly. I know I should have but I can't get up and down to do that and decided most of the water would probably drain out the screw holes or find some other outlet. For a while it looked like my trailer was leaking seriously. We had a lot of up and down driving the next morning and I think and hope all of the water in the belly drained out. All was completely dry by end of day. But you should know that it has been very hot out here. Triple digit days.

OK... so then we're about 80 miles up the road just passing thru Ashland, OR when I hear a loud "POP" and feel like I've hit a large hole in the road! Well there was no hole in the road and when I look in rear view mirror I see stuff flying from the right wheel well on the trailer. We had blown the right rear trailer tire. Just not our day. It tore off the little fender skirt but appears to be the only damage. Got a new tire just up the road at Medford.... if you ever need a tire and are in this region go to Les Schwab Tires. I drive into their parking lot and a young man jumps out in front of my rig and directs me to parking on the side and immediately finds out what I need and checks availability and gets the tire and gets the changing process going and by the time I hobble back to my truck they've changed the tire!

Here's hoping we've gotten all our "boo-boos" out of the way for this trip!

Anyway... never leave the water running!

See you all on down the road... HamRad

Montana_70 · 08-21-2004, 02:18 AM

HamRad,

Ok then...I will add, "check for running water before going to dinner" to my checklist.

Sounds to me like you might have over watered your plants a bit!

I do appreciate the posts on the "blow outs". It has not happened to me but at least from reading other's experiences it is reassuring to know I'm not likely to go careening out of control. I'll just have to limp into a safe spot and assess the damage.

sreigle · 08-21-2004, 05:13 AM

Dennis, sorry to hear of your misfortunes but I'm glad no real serious damage was caused. On the water in the underbelly, it will dry. Been there. The first time I removed a couple of the screws between panels and used my hand to "work" the pan to push the water out (quite a lot, by the way). The second time I didn't and it dripped for a couple of days. I got some funny looks from folks in the parks as we were setting up though. Our Montana probably has one of the cleanest upper bellypan panels around.

Ours came from forgetting to open the gray valves before starting laundry. I figure the bath gray tank holds approximately one and a half washer loads of water. With the additional valve I installed after looking at yours I figure we can go close to three loads before overflowing.

Hope your trip has seen all it's problems and the rest is very enjoyable. Keep us posted on your adventures. I'm trying to check your location occasionally but am still pretty busy catching up after a month of no web access.

CountryGuy · 08-21-2004, 06:50 AM

HamRad,

Good reminder, have not done that in a while, but our first TT we did it, I'll never forget the sound of my mother-in-law screaming, "there is water on the floor", or something akin.

Not a fancy rig like these Montana's, no underbelly, it just ran out on the ground! My bathroom floor was real clean tho!

Sure brings back some memories!

Montana_593 · 08-21-2004, 09:12 AM

OK True Confessions--you don't want to let the faucets drip in freezing weather if you haven't opened gray water valve, freezing faucets will be the least of your worries.

Searchers · 08-21-2004, 09:24 AM

Dennis, I guess you won't forget the day we met any time soon! Sorry to hear of the water problem. Sure wish I'd known of it when it happened. Would have brought the wet/dry vac over and dropped the belly too. Do you know why the tire failed? We'll be watching as you continue your journey to the rally and hope the rest of it is mishap free. Please do come back this way again.

Northstar · 08-21-2004, 09:15 PM

Dennis, thanks for the posting. Something to be aware of. Happyrving....

patodonn · 08-22-2004, 10:59 AM

Dennis: Our blowout (same wheel) did the same damage to the wheelwell . We also lost the baffle just aft of it which shields the underside of the rear slide from "road scuzz and junk". We just used several layers of duct tape to mask that hole and all worked fine...Held nicely for a month until I got the rig to a suitable repair facility...even then, it only cost about $100 for repair of the fender and a replacement baffle.

One thing maybe of interest to other folks....did your rim, like mine, escape damage due to draqgging? It appears that the axle supports/shocks won't allow the rim to touch the ground even if the whole tire goes off the rim. Nice info for others who may experience the blow out situation.

NJ Hillbilly · 08-22-2004, 02:15 PM

Another reason to shut off the water pump:::

Stuff left on the bath sink (soap dispenser) banged into faucet (turned it on of course) other items stored in sink (so they won't fly around) push stopper closed, need I explain more.

Luckily I only had 20 gal or less in water tank so there wasn't that much water but storage area was wet along with bath area carpet.

John

BTW DW shut off water pump, I left it on after a pit stop.

Merv · 08-22-2004, 06:33 PM

Just a note here about leaving the water switch turned on.
we had a water line blow loose once. luckly we were in the camper at the time. i hat to think about it happening if we had been out all day.
besides the water all over, im sure the pump would not like being ran dry for hours.
since that first line blow-out we always shut the water off when we travel or leave for any amount of time.
Merv

toolmanroy · 08-22-2004, 08:12 PM

Oh, dear sorry to hear of your problems. You were right in our back yard when you had your tire problem. That got me thinking that it would be good to have a list of MOC members and phone numbers if one of us is in an area and needed help. Something to think about.

steves · 08-23-2004, 03:18 AM

Never, never ,never leave the black tank clean out hose attached and ask your wife to turn out the water!

Was under the bathroom sink fixing leak. I asked Betty to go turn the water back on to the trailer. I had previously dumped my tanks and cleaned out the black tank and left the hose attached to a second connection. She turned the water back on - Both connections. Leak was stopped and we went next door to have dinner with our friends. Half way through dinner someone says I hear water running and then some one says theres water coming out of your basement!

Lesson learned the hard way!!! Thankful that I had just cleaned the black tank!

Steve

NJ Hillbilly · 08-23-2004, 04:06 AM

I did it with a motorhome and the tank vent was spraying like a fountain.

That gets me thinking, how about a members only area in the Forum that could not be viewed or accessed by non-members. If You agree to the rules (no publicising of the names and addresses) You can access the area. It might be nice to drop a line to others when You are travelling in their home area. Call for local advice or help if needed.

John

Montana_404 · 08-23-2004, 11:46 AM

Ham, I am sorry to hear of your mishap. Just one of the things we have resolved not to do: Don't turn on water to sewer flush with black tank closed and full. We have one of those hose connections with the arrows you can turn to direct flow of water. My husband and I have both committed that sin. Hopefully not again. It's not a pleasant situation. Good Luck, Char Becker

skyguy · 08-23-2004, 02:05 PM

I've heard enough water tales to convonce me to close the water supply at the source (tap/faucet) anytime we'll be gone for more than half a day...

It's worked so far!

HamRad · 08-23-2004, 09:58 PM

toolmanroy,
Hi Roy. We were at exit 21. And wow! The traffic was heavy. There was a long on ramp at that site and we parked the rig on the shoulder at the far end of the ramp. No real problems other than traffic being very heavy. Even had a local stop and ask if we needed assistance.... that was very nice..... And eventually we even had a member of Oregon's finest stop by to see what was going on. Actually he walked up with his ticket book in his hand and did not offer assistance of any kind. Of course we explained to him that help was on the way. Still it would have been nice if he'd offered to stick around until the AAA folks showed up.... but I digress. It was great of him to even stop!

Sorry Roy we did not realize we were in your neighborhood. Heck with all your tools you could probably have helped the AAA guys. We actually ended up using my jack to lift the trailer!

Don.... thanks for the offer. I wish my brain had been working. I would have called you. Sure could have used the wet vac. As a matter of fact I may add that to our list of equipment. Thanks again and nice meeting you and your lovely wife. Hope to see you out RVing one of these days. If the regional get-togethers start working then maybe we can see you there.

Don as far as the tire goes.... there was no apparent cause of the blowout. The tire looked completely normal. There was lots tread left on the tire. All my tires on the trailer were running a little bit high... 90 pounds vs the normal 80. But that could easily have been from the heat of the road and or just the plain old heat because it was HOT! No. We could find nothing obvious about the tire to indicate why it had blown.

As for the water pump..... If we had been using the water pump then the problem would probably not have happened because the noise would have reminded us to turn it off! Right now we do travel with the water pump on. We do this because we need the water on the road and our unit has the switch located at the rear of the coach and is basically unaccessible with the slides in. NOW.... one of the improvements some folks have made and one that I will do... is to add a pump switch that is easily accessible... like near the entry door or in the bathroom. Anyway... right now we just take the risk and run with it on. But thanks to all who have shared their situations and fixes. We appreciate it.

Patodonn... No rim damage. I thought for sure there might be some problem but no.... I think you're right. They don't seem to be able to touch. And thanks for the heads up on the baffle damage. I did look up under the area but did not see any further damage. Could be because I don't know what I'm looking at! LOL....

NJ Hillbilly... glad you didn't have more water.... but even that much would be enough to get things really wet.

Silverbait.... Famous last words.... "We won't be camping in any weather cold enough to freeze our pipes.".... Of course last Oct. we did exactly that... thankfully no damage. Just no water!

toolmanroy · 08-24-2004, 03:20 AM

All that traffic here this time of year is from folks like you traveling through. Helps the economy around here.

As for the heat, it had been like that for weeks but this weekend we got relief and it is wonderful.

I hope we can get something going in MOC to have a list of members who are willing to lend a helping hand if possible during a situation like yours.

Montana_621 · 08-24-2004, 04:02 AM

OMG! Can you say murder suicide?

Mike would be furious at me so I think I will leave the plants at home.

I'm glad everything is ok now and you weren't hurt when the tire blew.

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by HamRad

Ok folks here's something you don't ever want to do ----- NEVER leave the water running in the bathtub to water your plants you've brought along and then go out to dinner for a couple of hours. We met some friends and Don and his wife Claudia (Searchers) at Mt. Shasta on Tuesday night. This was our second night out. We had a great time meeting our friends and making new ones of Don and Claudia.

So the guy next to us sees the water running from the basement and thankfully turns the water off. Otherwise it would have been a lot worse. We opened up the basement doors and turned on the lights and up in the bathroom we sopped as much water up as we could and left a fan running there to help dry things out and went to bed. Next morning all was dry except the lowest part of the basement. We did not open the belly. I know I should have but I can't get up and down to do that and decided most of the water would probably drain out the screw holes or find some other outlet. For a while it looked like my trailer was leaking seriously. We had a lot of up and down driving the next morning and I think and hope all of the water in the belly drained out. All was completely dry by end of day. But you should know that it has been very hot out here. Triple digit days.

OK... so then we're about 80 miles up the road just passing thru Ashland, OR when I hear a loud "POP" and feel like I've hit a large hole in the road! Well there was no hole in the road and when I look in rear view mirror I see stuff flying from the right wheel well on the trailer. We had blown the right rear trailer tire. Just not our day. It tore off the little fender skirt but appears to be the only damage. Got a new tire just up the road at Medford.... if you ever need a tire and are in this region go to Les Schwab Tires. I drive into their parking lot and a young man jumps out in front of my rig and directs me to parking on the side and immediately finds out what I need and checks availability and gets the tire and gets the changing process going and by the time I hobble back to my truck they've changed the tire!

Here's hoping we've gotten all our "boo-boos" out of the way for this trip!

Anyway... never leave the water running!

See you all on down the road... HamRad

Montana_621 · 08-24-2004, 04:04 AM

OMG! That would be horrible and a rude awakening!

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Silverbait

OK True Confessions--you don't want to let the faucets drip in freezing weather if you haven't opened gray water valve, freezing faucets will be the least of your worries.

Montana_621 · 08-24-2004, 04:06 AM

OH NO!!! I will remember to put everything away when we travel to avoid this.

Of all the things to happen....

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by NJ Hillbilly

Another reason to shut off the water pump:::

Stuff left on the bath sink (soap dispenser) banged into faucet (turned it on of course) other items stored in sink (so they won't fly around) push stopper closed, need I explain more.

Luckily I only had 20 gal or less in water tank so there wasn't that much water but storage area was wet along with bath area carpet.

John

BTW DW shut off water pump, I left it on after a pit stop.

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